Blog Project Compliation
Over the course of a couple of months, I’ve written numerous articles. From open letters to people that stay after close to cryptocurrencies, all have been intriguing. Each different article offered a new perspective on a certain topic that I previously have never considered or delved into before.
For my top three articles, I choose “ The Importance Of Self Driving” as my first one. I enjoyed having conversations with my friends about Tesla and their amazing technology so “why not write about it,” I thought. This article also enhanced my understanding of self-driving since I watched a couple of hours of electric car reviews on youtube as well.
For my second article, I went with “ My Adventure With Crypto”. Recently I’ve been investing in cryptocurrency and actually made a couple of hundred dollars now since the article was written. When writing this I thought of my hobbies and investing has become one of my favorite topics to talk about so why not write about it. Overall, this is probably my favorite article just because it’s such an interesting topic to really dive deep into.
Finally, my last article was my capstone essay converted into a blog for my audience. I chose this article because it seemed the most complete compared to the rest. It gives a synopsis of my 6-page research paper without all the research which helps when you're just interested in a topic. All in all, I enjoyed writing all these blogs the past couple of months and put a good bit of time into creating them.
1) As I drove to school a couple of weeks ago I noticed two distinct objects that gave me somewhat of a revelation. As I was sitting at the intersection of eighteen, two totally wrecked cars passed on a tow truck, and in the opposite lane a Tesla driving down the road. Now, these two things really don’t have a single correlation to each other, however, the night before I was on youtube watching the crash test videos of a Tesla and its self-driving experiments. So seeing two totally different outcomes got me thinking about the benefits of self-driving and how it could completely change our world.
I don’t mean get on my soapbox but wouldn’t the world seem so futuristic and innovative if every car on the road was self-driving, the world could almost be seen as Back To The Future. The idea that cars could communicate with each other as they drove by signaling lane changes and location is an amazing concept. This could allow minimal to no accidents to occur which would simultaneously bring the number of fatal car accidents down to a minimum. Furthermore, cars today now have human crossroad tracking which allows cars to brake if an object or human walks in front of the car automatically. While this does have some issues today in five to ten years innovation would allow this system to be near perfect and allow pedestrian accidents to fall tremendously.
The next big advantage of self-driving is human error. While human driving exists there are always going to be accidents like people falling asleep at the wheel or drunk driving. The introduction of self-driving has allowed for lane correction technology as well as whether or not the human in the car is asleep or not. This use of technology has allowed cars to stop themselves decreasing reckless accidents that could put more lives in danger including the driver.
Overall, the use of self-driving can save many lives and should be implemented sooner than later. One day I hope that we can live in a Back to the Future-like world.
2)In the most recent endeavors of Tyler Dominak one thing that I’ve been heavily interested in is investing. Now I work at a brewery as a busser who makes around ten dollars an hour with tips so my definition of investing is chump change compared to the big dogs. However, one thing that has caught my eye recently is the world of cryptocurrency (coins).
For those unaware, cryptocurrencies according to the Oxford Dictionary is “a digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralized system using cryptography, rather than by a centralized authority”. Or in layman’s terms a coin that’s not tracked or backed by a government. The benefit of this is that with no government tracking or backing a coin it allows anonymity along with the reduction of a middle man. For example, if the dollar one day crashed or became worthless the cryptocurrency wouldn’t lose value.
With that in mind where the money lies is in the adoption of cryptocurrency. The most valued crypto in the world right now is Bitcoin with a value of fifty-nine thousand as of April for one coin. For reference, back in 2013, the estimated value of Bitcoin was around fifty dollars. Now Imagine if you invested back then, you’d practically be a millionaire now. But that was eight years ago and this is now. With Bitcoin growing larger and larger it has allowed new coins to come out only trading at just a few cents. While this could be considered makeshift gambling due to no one knowing whether they’ll succeed or not I’d say it’s definitely worth it for the chance to make it rich. So for the past couple of months, I’ve been researching what good coins there are and what the chances are they’ll succeed. And to summarize I’ve invested into a couple of tiny coins and made a whopping ZERO dollars in about three months. Actually, to be specific I’ve lost money in stocks and other things. However, that’s not to say that I’ll never make any money but only time will tell. Should I have invested more into safer stocks and ETFs? Maybe. But for now, I’m content with my future in cryptocurrency and I’ll keep you updated on my adventure.
3)Video games have been around since I was born. I grew up hearing the sounds of Wii bowling playing on the TV with late-night sleepovers playing Halo with my friends in my old childhood neighborhood. Later in life, video games gave me a chance to play with my childhood friends that were too far away allowing me to keep in touch and not feel left out or lonely that I wasn’t close by.
I’ve always thought nothing but the best of video games and had great respect for what they’ve done for my life. However, recently as I’ve begun watching the news, a growing issue was shown that parents say that video games are corrupting the youth and causing violence in young children. They argue that it can potentially be the reason for mass shootings not only in the States but also in the World.
As I’ve begun to dive deeper into the topic I’ve noticed that the narrative deeply stems from parents witnessing kids play these shooter-type games that I once played as a kid. Now I’m just one kid in a vast array of people but I’ve never thought about killing or hurting someone just because I was angry, and according to research video games actually benefit people mentally just like it allowed me not to feel left out from my childhood friends.
One study done by Mrs. Coyne at Birmingham University highlights the efforts that gaming can do to help individuals instead of hurting them. By analyzing multiple people from kids to adults she discovered that video games are a great coping mechanism to help alleviate depression and anxiety. This also helps with connecting to others in times where that may be impossible as in a pandemic or great distances.
Video games can be a great way not only to kick back and relax after a long day of work but also a way to connect to others and just keep in touch when maybe it might be hard for you. If you’re having a bad day try throwing on some Wii bowling and you might feel a tad better.
